[QUOTE]Originally posted by tokyo_james
Since bank robbery can be considered a very serious offence both criminally AND morally, I would have thought that a better question would be, if you found a wallet containing $5000 in the street, where there was no one around to see you pick it up, and also in the wallet was the driving licence and business card of the wallet's owner.

 

This is an interesting comment. While there is no question that society molds our thoughts, I personally question that we are born with a sense of wright and wrong. These are human concepts applied to conditions of life. In nature there is no right and wrong. When we see things such as an animal killing another animal we generally are repulsed by it and label it bad. In fact, it is neither good nor bad. It just is. As animals, we have certain instincts. Survival takes precident but society tempers our killing instinct (well, most of the time).

This is beginning to touch on free will but I'll stay on topic and not go there.

 

lol, there are still inbuilt emotions that impact on your morality though i.e. babies are noisy, smelly and ugly but you are programmed to react to the noise of them crying and the larger eye size to head ratio has been proven to cause parental emotions (why everyone will say they are so cute and want to pick them up)

Agree that you have free will but even if you grew up in complete isolation they have proved that certain reactions still apply. Both nature and nurture tho

 

Yes reactions are in our genes but the morality and labels of good and bad are not.

And btw, I would argue that we do NOT have free will. Maybe I'll start another thread for that one.

 

religion needs morality.

morality can stand on its own two feet.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by THE FETUS